Can supervised toothbrushing fix the children's dental crisis?

Inside Health

BBC

Health & Fitness, Science

4.4 • 575 Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the UK, around a third of British children have tooth decay. Just among the under-fives, it's a quarter - a figure that rises significantly in the most deprived areas.

Tooth decay can cause speech development issues, embarrassment for children and in 2023, 15 million school days were missed due to tooth pain or treatment. There’s a financial cost too – in 2023 in England alone tooth extractions under a general anaesthetic cost the NHS £41 million.

And it's totally preventable.

So, how can we stop teeth rotting in the first place? One way initiative announced by the new Labour government is to expand supervised toothbrushing sessions to more children. We find out how these work with Oral Health Team Lead Helen Bullingham who supports nurseries and schools in East Sussex to deliver these programmes.

But what about the evidence to support this intervention? Zoe Marshman, Professor of Dental Public Health at University of Sheffield, explains her findings and dental hygienist and researcher at King's College London Dr Claire McCarthy describes what parents should be doing, in an ideal world, at home.

And finally, what role does sugar play and how can we get consumption down? Dr Nina Rogers from the Population Health Innovation Lab at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine explains her findings into the impact of the Sugar Drinks Industry Levy introduced in 2018.

Presenter: James Gallagher Producers: Hannah Robins Content Editor: Holly Squire

Inside Health is a BBC Wales & West production for Radio 4, produced in partnership with The Open University.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast,
0:05.4	The Traitors Uncloaked. But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like Ellis and John's
0:10.6	Saturday bonus episodes, the Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Ryland, and comedy specials
0:16.2	from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffel and Rommas Shranger Nathan. However, and maybe I'm biased, it's really all about the traitors uncloked.
0:24.3	So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and podcasts, listen only on BBC Sounds.
0:30.5	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:34.3	Now that you've just brushed your teeth, what do they feel like?
0:38.1	Minty.
0:38.8	Or minty.
0:40.2	Hello there and welcome to the Inside Health podcast. I'm James Gallagher. I hope your teeth are
0:45.4	lovely, minty, fresh and clean. Because today we're investigating the state of our children's
0:51.0	teeth because there is a problem. So if you imagine a classroom of five-year-olds
0:56.3	all looking smart, getting ready for their school photos, practicing their cheesy grins,
1:01.4	while hiding in a third of those smiles is tooth decay at just age five. And that affects their
1:09.5	children's speech. You can leave them in pain, missing school. It has
1:12.8	a cost to the NHS racking up tens of millions of pounds in extractions each year. The new
1:18.9	government has pledged to tackle the issue and we're going to get into the solutions in a bit.
1:23.1	But first, I want you to meet Helen Bullingham. She's a dental surgical assistant at the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital in Brighton,
1:30.7	where she helps with tooth extractions in incredibly young children.
1:35.8	Helen, welcome to Inside Health.
1:37.6	Hi.
1:38.8	I mean, you must have seen some quite horrific cases.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.